Green Investing in India – Government to Replace Diesel Usage of Telecom Towers by Renewable Energy

The Government of India has formed a high powered panel to look into replacing the usage of diesel powered gensets by Renewable Energy in Telecom Towers.India has around 300,000 Telecom Towers most of which are powered by expensive diesel generators.The reason is that a lot of the telecom towers are situated in far flung areas where the grid does not exist.Also the power supply in India is erratic and not reliable with 10 hour electricity blackouts not an infrequent occurrence.In these cases a backup supply of electricity supply is badly needed.Diesel Generators are the most popular form with Diesel heavily subsidized by the government in comparison to normal petroleum.Also Diesel Generators are widely available without huge capital costs.

However these Diesel Generators are much more expensive than normal electricity and cause a huge amount of pollution.The government estimates a $1.5 billion annual spend on fossil fuel by telecom towers with 5 million tons of Carbon Dioxide Emission.Replacing these polluting forms of expensive dirty energy with Green Energy is a great forward looking proactive step.Note some of the telecom towers are already using some form of Renewable Energy.Making it mandatory for all towers to use Green Energy would give the much needed policy boost to Green Telecom in India.

The Union Government has set up a five-member committee, headed by Ajay Bhattacharya of the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) of the Telecom Ministry, to explore ways to promote renewable energy for powering telecom towers, say media reports. Every year, the country’s three-lakh telecom towers utilize fuel worth over Rs.6,400 crore. The government is planning to use renewable energy, particularly solar energy, to reduce the cost of fuel and to dispense with hazardous carbon emissions. The committee will submit its report in three months.

Sneha Shah

I am Sneha, the Editor-in-chief for the Blog. We would be glad to receive suggestions, inputs & comments on GWI from you guys to keep it going! You can contact me for consultancy/trade inquires by writing an email to greensneha@yahoo.in